A highly innovative restructuring and reading of Stein's work.

An important feminist compilation.

This journal (2004) is a very cool read for feminist scholars and anyone interested in body politic.  Although I am not sure that any of the essays will apply to my work, I was quite interested in Schleiner's essay "Female-Bobs Arrive at Dusk", which talks about the phenomenon of fan-created female heroine patches for video games in the late 1990's (part of our discussion with Nick Monfort).  I was hoping to be able to use the essay by Aristarkhova "Femininity, Community, Hospitality: Towards a Cyberethics" in order to discuss issues of hospitality and community for women online, but she spends the entire time theorizing on the ideas of Derrida and community without talking about language and speech.

"The most important thing to say about Thornham's book is that it is one of the best edited collections of essays this reviewer has seen. Moving in roughly chronological order, Thornham includes selections from all the branches of feminist film criticism and by most of the important scholars in the field. The editor has chosen carefully, and the reader will take pleasure in revisiting the works of Jonhston, Mulvey, Doane, de Lauretis, Kuhn, Gledhill, Staiger, Modleski, hooks, and Butler, among others. Thornham introduces each section with an admirable summary of the historical context of each new movement. This collection will be widely circulated and used in countless classrooms over the coming years, as well it should be. All levels." (Choice, March 2000)

""In imaging female subjectivity and addressing the spectator as female, feminist filmmakers have created films which transform and innovate cinematic codes and conventions." Smelik switches the focus of feminist discourse from spectator to filmmaker. Unwilling to revive the auteur theory, which she considers to be elitist and phallocentric, she nevertheless investigates the works of such filmmakers as Sander, Campion, Treut, and Adlon and discovers ways in which they subvert traditional cinematic subjectivity, affect, and modes of representation. Smelik's arguments are, of course, deeply rooted in the feminist theory of Lacan, Mulvey, Silverman, Kaplan, Irigaray, et al., but she also includes such figures as Eisenstein and Barthes. She does not privilege any particular theory but uses whatever works for the particular filmmaker she is dealing with. Her choice of films is as refreshing as her method: one is too used to reading about the same feminist films in book after book. Smelik's knowledge of the field is encyclopedic, and her analyses are consistently persuasive. This welcome addition to the ongoing feminist discourse is recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty." (Choice, February 1999)